BlackBerry cancels conference call with analysts, citing sale

The troubled smartphone company said Wednesday evening that in light of Fairfax's letter of intent to buy BlackBerry, the call has been cancelled. BlackBerry Ltd. says it'll release more detailed results Friday for the quarter that ended Aug. 31.

A week earlier than expected, BlackBerry announced last Friday that it lost nearly $1 billion in the quarter. It's booking over $900 million in charges to write down the value of its unsold smartphones. The Canadian company also announced revenue of $1.6 billion. That's about half of the $3 billion that analysts expected, according to FactSet. The company's expected adjusted loss of 47 cents to 51 cents per share falls far below the loss of 16 cents per share projected by Wall Street.

BlackBerry announced earlier this week that Fairfax signed a letter of intent that "contemplates" buying BlackBerry for $9 a share, or $4.7 billion. Fairfax, BlackBerry's largest shareholder, is trying to attract other investors.